Skill Priority

The purpose of the Skill Priority feature is skills-based dialing, which means outbound dialing priorities based on agent Skills.

Every agent assigned an applicable Skill will get outbound calls according to the Skill Priorities defined for that Skill, irrelevant of the Campaign to which the Agent signs into.

Skill Priority supports both outbound and inbound calls. Applying Skill Priority to inbound calls is an optional and additional step to outbound Skill Priority for the associated Skill.

In summary, Skill Priority is configured as follows:

1. A Skill can have an associated Skill Priority.

1. A Skill Priority is assigned a list of Sub-campaigns, for which order and priorities can also be configured (in the case of outbound calls).

1. Except when the Dial Priority switch is ON, in which case ordering and prioritization follows the ones in Dial Priority.

2. The list of Sub-campaigns can be from any Campaign (not limited to a single Campaign like in Dial Priority)

1. Except when the Dial Priority switch is ON, in which case the list of Sub-campaigns used is just for the single Campaign used in Dial Priority.

3. Skill Priority can also apply a filter from a Playlist (see Playlist Builder), whether Sub-campaigns are added to the list, or not.

In summary, Skill Priority is handled as follows:

4. Agents with the corresponding Skill are assigned calls according to the Skill Priority list order and priorities (for an in-depth technical reference, you may look at “Prioritization Mechanisms for Dial Priority and Skill Priority”).
5. Each call is handled by the Agent within the context of the Campaign where the record resides.
6. Each Skill can be associated with a Skill Priority rule.
7. A Sub-campaign can be active on more than one Skill Priority rule.

The steps and options to configure Skill Priority are as follows:

1. Go the main menu area on the left, click to expand the Outbound menu, and select Skill Priority.
2. Pull down the Select Skill menu found on the top left of the presentation area and select the Skill for which you want to configure the skill priority.

Refer to the following figures.

Figure 1 – Skill Priority Configuration Window

Figure 2 – Skill Priority with Dial Priority Switch

Figure 3 – Skill Priority with Playlist Filtering

Figure 4 – Playlist Builder Showing Associated Playlist

After selecting a skill, sub-campaigns from all campaigns appear split into two areas; the right area shows the Sub-campaigns that are selected to be active for this rule, while the left area shows those that have not, but still available for selection.

3. You can click-and-drag sub-campaigns from one side to the other or click-select (single or multiple) Sub-campaigns and use the action item icons between the two panels; click on the icon to perform the corresponding action (Add, Add All, Save, Refresh, Remove All, Remove).

In essence, Skill Priority uses records in Sub-Campaigns from different Campaigns. Do keep in mind that the Campaign rules applied for each call are those from their own Campaign, irrespective to which Campaign the Agent is logged into.

Next, we describe how to include inbound calls with Skill Priority.

To do so, all we need is to enable Skill Priority for the Skill itself.

To configure a Skill for inbound Skill Priority:

1. Access the Skill Groups settings.
2. Select a Skill.
3. Go to the Incoming Call Queues tab.
4. Check the Apply Skill Priority Rules for Inbound Calls option.

Refer to the following figure.

Figure 5 – Skill Configuration for Inbound Skill Priority

Skill Priority for inbound calls is handled as follows:

1. The calling number from the inbound call is looked up in the system to determine whether it is part of a Sub-campaign and/or Playlist.
2. If so, and the Sub-campaign is active on a Skill Priority rule, or the Playlist enabled, the associated Skill is checked to determine if it is enabled to Apply Skill Priority Rules for Inbound Calls.
3. If it is, the system looks for an available Agent with that Skill.

1. Otherwise just continues with standard inbound call handling.

4. If the Skill is enabled and an Agent with that Skill is available, it routes the call to the Agent.

1. Otherwise just treats the call as if no agent is available.

For more technical and in-depth understanding on how the system handles the call cache and other Campaign, Skill Priority, and Dial Priority parameters, feel free to check the following Knowledge Base article: “Feature Update-Skill Priority”.